Planning Ahead!

Well, it's that time of year, while the weather certainly doesn't look like Summer, or even Spring for that matter, we are planning ahead. Ontario provincial parks are open for reservations, although you can only book 5 months in advance, so you can't book for the whole summer yet. Quebec and New Brunswick Provincial park reservation systems are open too. This year we decided to travel down east to Prince Edward Island but the reservation system for the provincial parks there doesn't open until 15 Apr. That's unusual as the National park is open for reservations and so are the commercial campgrounds.

We went ahead and booked a shake out trip here in Ontario for early June. We would have gone the first week but I have a doctor's appointment and there's an agility trial I'd like to do with Liam. Then we decided on the dates in Shediac, NB so we could get the two sites we had last time. They're shaded and near the bathrooms and then we worked our way backwards to select sites at the other campgrounds.  We now have booked three one-night stands in Quebec and NB before a four night stay in Shediac, NB. Our brother lives close to there so we might have him out to camp with us, the site next to ours is a tent site and I could bring extra equipment with me if he wants to come out. Now we just have to wait for the reservations to open for the Prince Edward Island parks and hope that's it's first come, first served. We have two provincial parks picked out and a number of sites in each park so hopefully we'll get something. If not, we have another sister who lives on PEI, her driveway could become our camping location; that's what I did when I went over for the Arsenault family reunion. 

But if that's not planning ahead, another sister and I, who are going on a river cruise in France this summer with a pre and post cruise stay in Paris, put a deposit on a trip to Portugal and Spain for Sep 2027. That's so far in advance that all the company can guarantee for the type of room is double or single. We prefer a twin. But by putting the deposit down now it does fix the price. We had planned on Egypt but with what is going on in the Middle East right now it might be better to wait. I guess we could look ahead to 2028!

Rome-ing - Venice

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted. The months of August and September were filled with camping adventures and a trip to Italy.  This post is about the trip to Italy.

When we looking for an itinerary that would take us to a number of different cities, we found that many companies tried to cram in as much as possible on their tours, how do you visit 13 cities in 11 days.  Or you couldn't modify the trip. We found an Air Canada vacation itinerary that we liked but you couldn't even extend, the hotel bookings with linked with the vacation package flights. Our travel agent recommended a company called Railbookers. We were able to set our own itinerary by deciding how many nights we wanted to stay in each location. We wanted to go to Venice, Florence, Naples and Rome. 

When Railbookers came back to us; the first quote it seemed quite high, they had tours or excursions scheduled every day and the hotels they had booked were all four star. We indicated that good three star hotels would be fine with us and that there were tours we didn't want to do. The next quote was much better, the hotels were still four star but we had free days in each location to do as we pleased. Railbookers also booked the train tickets (all first class) and transfers from the arrival airport to the first hotel and from the last hotel to the departure airport. We cancelled the the departure transfer as we would be in Rome with the hotel only a block or so away from Termini train station where we could catch the Leonardo Express train.

Our first destination in Italy was to Venice. The private transfer was by water taxi and there was a representative in the arrivals area to meet us to escort us to the dock area. Unfortunately, it was raining on our arrival but at the speed the water taxi goes you'd likely get wet anyway. Our hotel had a private dock at the back of the hotel so our private transfer took us right to that dock. No lugging wheelie bags very far, all we had to do was go around to the front of the hotel. Our first hotel was the Santa Marina. It was well situated being quite near the Rialto Bridge. It had a nice lounge and bar with a covered patio area. At first glance, our room seemed rather tired but I think it was just that the furniture, although quaint, was dated.. The bathroom seemed to have been recently renovated. Our room had a nice view, looking out over the front courtyard. 

We had an an excursion the next day booked so after settling into our hotel we set off to find the meeting place.  The excursion was a walking tour of Venice with entrance into the Doge's Palace and the Golden Basilica. The following day was our free day, we went to see a music museum, a gondola workshop, eat cicchetti and used the water bus to go over to San Giorgio Island where we saw a Murano glass exhibit and went up the bell tower for some wonderful views of Venice. 

Cicchetti

Golden Basilica

Rialto Bridge

Bridge of Sighs

The next day we would have to get to the train station, having ridden the water bus the day before, we knew where to catch the bus to the train station. We left for the train station early as we didn't know how long it would take us to walk to the dock or how often the water busses ran. We ended up being at the station quite early and had to wait awhile for our train. The trains had reserved seating, your ticket gives you the car number and the number of your assigned seat. We had first class tickets,  meaning wider seats, wifi and a free snack and drink was provided. It was an easy trip to Florence. As you can see from the pictures, we ended up having good weather in Venice and we would be quite lucky with weather for the rest of our trip as well.

View from the train station

Rockett on the train

I'll pick up with our stay in Florence on my next post. 

Home from the Highlands

Two days ago, I got home from a 15-day self-driving vacation in Scotland. I went with two of my sisters, and a brother-in-law. We started and ended the vacation in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle from Princes Garden

We had two nights in Edinburgh before we picked up the rental car. We arrived in Edinburgh while the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo was on; we decided that we couldn't miss that opportunity. It's an hour and half show that only starts at 9:30 pm and we had a rental car to pick up the next morning but it was a once in a lifetime thing.

Massed Pipes and Drums

We picked up the rental car. It was a black Suburu Boxer SUV. It was a nice vehicle with GPS, back up and forward cameras.  The car was also a hybrid so it switched to an electric motor when we were going slow enough.

It was a little difficult to get out of Edinburgh. I took a wrong turn and ended up having to make an illegal right turn to get back on track. We were heading to see  the Falkirk Kelpies, Stirling Castle and  the Wallace Monument. Then it would be off to our first B&B in a little town called Bridge of Cally. 

Falkirk Kelpies

Stirling Castle Great Hall

Wallace Monument

The driving in Scotland was intense to say the least. People drive really fast on little twisty turning roads. I had driven in England and Scotland before but I don't remember the roads being so narrow and, for the most part, without a decent shoulder.  I certainly wasn't driving fast enough for the locals and got honked at quite a few times that first day.  The GPS in the car got us to our destination but it chose a rather strange route going off on the smaller roads rather than staying on one of the more main routes. We did get to our destination eventually but just as we arrived, I hit a traffic cone that was in a pot hole. We had a rubbed spot on the front corner of the car and quite a scratch on the back passenger door. 

Bridge of Cally Hotel

The next day's journey was to Scone Palace about 1/2 hour away and then on to Inverness for a two night stay. This time the GPS did take us to Scone on the road I thought it would the day before. The driving was getting somewhat easier although I still hated seeing large trucks coming around a curve at me. 

Scone Palace

Cavell Guest House

The following day was only a short drive to Culloden and to the Clava Cairns.  The only driving issue on this day was that to get to the Clava Cairns there was about a 500m road that was single lane with only one small pull out. You had to watch for oncoming traffic. 

Culloden

Clava Cairns

The following day was a longer drive along Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle, then past the town where the next B&B was located and onto the Glenfinnian Monument and Glenfinnian Viaduct, made famous by the Harry Potter films. After we saw the Glenfinnian attractions, we back tracked about half an hour to Spean Bridge where the Distant Hills Guest House was located.

Urquhart Castle

Glensfinnian Monument

Glenfinnian Viaduct

I think the Distant Hills Guest House was the nicest of the B&B's that we stayed at. I wished we had at least two nights there as we would have had time to enjoy the hot tub in the back garden. 

Pergola and hot tub

Guest Lounge

The next day was the drive to Glencoe and on down to Glasgow. This is a spectacular drive when the weather is nice but as luck would have it, we had our first really rainy day.  In Glasgow, we were staying two nights at the Holiday Inn.  There was no parking at the hotel but the hotel subsidizes the parking at the car park across the street. We left the car in the parking garage and used the Hop On Hop Off bus. 

Glencoe Visitor Centre

I drove that!

Three Sisters

Holiday Inn bar area

We left Glasgow early so as not to miss the check in time for the ferry to the  Isle of Arran.  Thankfully we had the use of Google maps in addition to the car's GPS. A bridge was closed and, of course, that's the way the GPS directions wanted us to go. Once out of Glasgow the drive was fairly easy and we made it to Ardrossan in plenty of time for our ferry. There was an Asda located close to the ferry terminal and we walked back to see if we could buy some T-Cut to buff out the scratches on the car. 

Ardrossan Ferry Terminal

On the way to the Isle of Arran

Isle of Arran - Scotland in Miniature

We arrived on the Isle of Arran too early to check in to our B&B so we first went to Brodick Castle, home of the Dukes of Hamilton. After visiting the castle, we then went to the Belvedere Guest House to find our host had popped out, he had left us notes with the keys to our rooms but when checking out the place, we set off the security alarm.

Brodick Castle

View of Goat Fell from our room

Belvedere Guest House

The following day was a drive around the island. The principal stop for me was at the Clachaig Farm where my grandmother, one of her brothers and one of her sisters were born.  The current owner invited us to walk around and take pictures and showed us the bothy and the original farm kitchen.  We also visited Lochranza Castle. Little did we know that we would see it again the very next day.

Clachaig Farm

Lochranza Castle

When we went out to dinner at the local pub that night, one of the men at the bar said the ferry had broken down and that the service between Brodick and Ardrossan had been cancelled. Sure enough about 40 minutes later I got an email about the service disruption. We had not been rebooked on the other ferry service from Brodick so the only option left was to book on the ferry that was first come, first serve. We bought a ticket for the Lochranza to Claonaig ferry.  The issue with that route was we would have a four to five hour drive to Edinburgh rather than about a two hour drive.  The next day was a gorgeous sunny day, we headed up to Lochranza, arriving at about 9:20 am and then proceeded to wait, we made it on to the 1:15 pm  ferry crossing. 

Lochranza Ferry

Good Bye to the Isle of Arran

It was beautiful drive and the scenery was wonderful but I didn't have much time to enjoy it as I was focused on driving.  We got back to Edinburgh around 6pm and returned the car without incident.  In a dark car park the Enterprise agent didn't notice the scratches, that really were barely noticeable, as they had been buffed with the T-Cut. I was really mentally exhausted from being so focused on driving that I couldn't back up in the parking garage to park the car into one of the free spaces. 

We now had three more night in Edinburgh before our flights home.  I'll do some other posts on the sites and places we saw on our travels. 

"My heart's in the Highlands

My heart is not here,

my heart's in the Highlands

a chasin the deer.

A chasin the wild deer and following the roe,

my heart's in the Highlands wherever I go."